Whitney thought she was going to explode. “I have been kissed often enough not to require lessons from the likes of you, if that’s what you have in mind!”
He chuckled as his arms encircled her rigid body. “So you’ve been kissed that often, have you, little one?”
Whitney stared at his chest, refusing to look up at him. Screaming was out of the question; her reputation would be destroyed if anyone saw her in such a compromising situation. She could not, could not believe this was actually happening to her. Torn between the urge to burst into tears, or hit him she said as calmly as possible, “If you are quite through trying to frighten and humiliate me, please let me go.”
“Not until I discover how much you’ve learned from all your ‘experience,’?” he whispered.
Whitney snapped her head up, intending to launch into a tirade, only to have her words smothered by his mouth. She froze at the initial shock of the contact, then forced herself to be perfectly still beneath the pressure of his lips. Although she had little experience in kissing, she had considerable experience in avoiding it, and she knew that by neither struggling nor responding, a woman could reduce an over-ardent male to a state of apologetic chagrin.
When Clayton finally drew back, however, he looked neither chagrined nor apologetic. Instead he regarded her with an infuriating grin. “Either you had very poor teachers, my lady, or you are sorely in need of more lessons.”
His arms loosened, and Whitney stepped back. Pivoting on her heel, she vengefully fired a parting remark over her shoulder, “At least my lessons weren’t learned in a brothel!”
It happened so quickly, there was no time to react. A hand like a vice shot out and seized her wrist, spinning her around back into the shadows, and jerking her into his arms. “I think,” he enunciated in an awful voice, “that your problem is purely a matter of inexperienced teachers.”
His mouth crushed down on hers, mercilessly bruising her lips, forcing them to part from sheer pressure.
Whitney writhed futilely in his iron embrace while tears of impotent rage raced down her cheeks. The more she struggled, the more insolent and punishing his mouth became, until she finally grew still, defeated and trembling in his arms. The moment she stopped fighting, he lifted her head and cradled her face between his two hands. Gazing into her stormy, tear-brightened eyes, he said quietly, “That was your first lesson, little one. Never, ever play games with me. I’ve played them all before, and you can’t win. This is the second lesson,” he murmured as his mouth descended toward hers.
Whitney drew a sharp breath and started to scream, but his mouth throttled the scream to a hysterical whimper, and so gently this time that she was stunned into silent quiescence. His hand curved around her nape, his fingers stroking and soothing, while the other drifted over her back in a slow, restless caress, moving her closer to his length. And all the while, his lips were moving on hers with fierce tenderness, shaping and fitting their soft curves to his own.
He touched his tongue to her lips, coaxing them to part, sending wild jolts through Whitney’s body. She reached her arms around his neck, clinging to him for support. His arm tightened protectively around her, and his tongue fully invaded the soft recesses of her mouth, tasting and exploring, filling her, until her whole body was a rioting mass of dizzying sensations.
He deepened the kiss, and his hand moved from her back to her midriff, sliding upward to her breast, boldly cupping its soft, enticing fullness.
Outrage at that intimate fondling banished every other emotion in a blinding flash of fury. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Whitney tore free, flinging his arms furiously away. “How dare you!” she hissed at the same time that she lifted her hand and slapped him as hard as she could.
In utter disbelief, Whitney watched a slow, satisfied grin sweep across his face. So incensed that she could scarcely draw enough air to speak, she said, “If you ever, ever touch me again, I’ll kill you!”
Her threat only seemed to please him more, and there was no mistaking the silent chuckle that preceded his next words. “That won’t be necessary, my lady. I already have the answer I sought.”
“Answers!” Whitney gasped. “If I were a man, I’d give you an answer at the point of a pistol.”
“If you were a man, you’d have no reason to.”
Whitney stood there, shaking with thwarted outrage, yearning to do or say something that would penetrate his cool, imperturbable exterior. The tears filling her eyes were tears of fury, but the moment he saw them he was contrite. “Dry your eyes, and I’ll return you to your friends inside.” So saying, he produced a white handkerchief and held it toward her. Whitney thought she would splinter apart from the turbulence of her hatred and animosity. She snatched the handkerchief from his hand and flung it to the ground, spinning on her heel with every intention of stalking into the ballroom alone.
“Excuse us,” Paul said with a curt nod as he escorted Elizabeth past them, toward the doors into the ballroom.
“How long has Paul been there?” Whitney demanded wrathfully, facing Clayton with her fists clenched. “You vile contemptible . . . you did all that deliberately, for his benefit, didn’t you? So that he would see it. You wanted him to see it!”
“I did it deliberately, for my benefit,” Clayton corrected her blandly, placing his hand under Whitney’s elbow and guiding her toward the French doors.
They stepped into the safety of the brightly lit house, and Whitney jerked her arm away, her voice a furious whisper. “You must be Satan’s own son!”
“My father would have been disappointed to think so,” Clayton replied with an infuriating chuckle.
“Your father?” Whitney scoffed, stepping away from him. “If you think your mother even knew his name, you deceive yourself!”
There was a moment of stunned silence while it registered on Clayton that he had just been called a bastard, followed by a shout of laughter as her ladylike slur on his legitimacy sank in. He was still grinning as he strolled along in her indignant wake, admiring the sway of her slender hips.
Blind with anger, Whitney stormed up to a group of middle-aged guests, which included her aunt, and stared past them, oblivious to their conversation. How she loathed and despised Clayton Westland! If it was the last thing she ever did, she would repay him for this night, for putting his filthy, debauched hands on her, for causing her to appear as a harlot in front of Paul.
It was at least an hour later when Paul’s deep voice sai
d very quietly near her ear, “Come and dance with me.” His hand had already taken possession of her elbow, and Whitney walked beside him. She was so afraid of seeing condemnation on his face that even when they were dancing she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “Does a man have to take you out to the balcony to get your attention, Miss Stone?” he taunted.
Whitney’s gaze flew to his, and she discovered to her intense relief that the scene he had witnessed on the balcony had obviously annoyed him, but there was no disgust in his expression.
“Would you prefer a stroll in the night air?” he mocked.
“Please don’t tease me about that,” she half pleaded, half sighed. “It’s been a long evening, and I’m exhausted.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said with heavy irony, but when Whitney flushed with embarrassment, he relented. “Do you think you could recover from your ‘exhaustion’ by tomorrow morning—in time for a picnic with, say, ten people, in your honor?”
Lady Eubank and Aunt Anne had been right! Whitney realized jubilantly. “I would love it,” she admitted with a bright, happy smile.
When the dance ended, Paul led her to a relatively quiet corner of the room. He stopped a footman bearing a tray of champagne, took two glasses, and gave one to Whitney. Leaning his shoulder against a pillar, he grinned down at her. “Shall I invite Westland?”
Whitney’s first instinct was to grasp his lapels and scream no! But one look at that confident grin of his, and she chose a wiser course. She shrugged and even managed to smile. “By all means, invite him if you wish.”
“You wouldn’t object?”
Whitney gave him an innocent stare. “I can’t think why I should. He’s, well, very handsome . . .” She looked down at her glass to hide her grimace of revulsion. “And charming, and . . .”